N. Walters - Legacy Found

Hopefully, more would come in time. And if it didn’t, they’d forge a new relationship. Now that he’d found her, he wasn’t going to lose her again. He and his family owed James LeVeau Riley a huge debt that could never be repaid.

She had been alive and they’d stopped looking. Had she watched for them? Waited for her family to come and rescue her? What had happened to her as the days had turned into weeks? The weeks into months? The months into years? No wonder she didn’t remember them. He wouldn’t blame her if she didn’t want to remember them.

They followed James as he led her to his house. It was time to talk. Time to try to get past his anger and reforge his bond with his sister.

Jessup faded back into the forest, tucking his binoculars into his pack. He hadn’t gotten too close, hanging as far back as he dared. Those bastards had superior senses and could see and smell what humans couldn’t. He’d been careful to stay upwind and keep behind cover. Thankfully, the big guy was distracted with the female he’d brought with him.

But he knew where they were now. Could see the houses in the distance. There was no longer any doubt. They were werewolves. Those howls had made his skin crawl and goose bumps still trailed up and down his arms.

He slowly worked his way out of the woods, not wanting to be in there alone. There were too many of them for him to handle on his own.

When he reached the safety of the road and his truck, he yanked out his cell phone. You couldn’t use one close to those bastards. They had incredible hearing.

It was answered on the first ring. “Talk to me.”

“Hey, boss. I found them. And you were right. They’re werewolves. I counted five males and two females, including the two from the truck I followed.”

“Good work.”

Jessup smiled. It wasn’t often Macmillan gave out such high praise.

“Give me your location, and I’ll round up Red and a few boys and we’ll meet you there.”

Jessup gave him the information he needed and ended the call. Then he settled back to wait. Already the familiar anticipation was rising inside him. He couldn’t wait to go hunting.

Shelley sat huddled in one corner of a large sofa. James’s house was rather large for one man. It was built from logs, but there was a rough elegance to the place. A huge fireplace made from natural stone dominated one wall of the living room. A fire crackled and popped in the grate, adding warmth to the space. Several large sofas and chairs were clustered around it, making a cozy seating area she might have appreciated if she weren’t the center of attention.

Alex strode from the kitchen area carrying a tray filled with mugs. Shelley could smell strong, hot coffee and fragrant tea. She shivered and pulled her coat tighter around her.

The men, her brothers—and how weird was it to say that—ranged around the room. The twins sat on the sofa opposite her, Simon sat on the edge of one of the chairs and Joshua was pacing back and forth in front of the hearth. James sat a few feet away from her.

“Here,” Alex set the tray on the wooden coffee table and handed her one of the mugs. “I thought you might like tea better. You’ve had a shock.”

“Thank you.” Shelley accepted the mug and held it between her two hands, thankful for the heat. She sipped the tea. It was sweet, but the warm beverage helped settle her stomach and her nerves.

Joshua stopped pacing and took the mug his wife handed him. He leaned down and kissed her cheek. Shelley noticed he was always watching her, touching her. Her hair, her back, her shoulder. Shelley doubted either of them even noticed. But she did.

Her life had been void of such contact and she was fascinated by the easy way they showed one another affection.

“Shelley?” Joshua sat on the edge of the coffee table, leaving only about a foot of distance between them. Her reprieve was over. “What happened?”

She was tired of answering all the questions. She wanted some answers of her own. “Why don’t you tell me what happened? I don’t remember and I only have one man’s account of what did, and I can’t trust what he told me.”

“Who is he?” Joshua growled.

Shelley held her ground. She raised her mug to her lips and sipped her tea. When Joshua still didn’t answer her, she raised her eyebrow at him in question.

A reluctant smile tugged at the corners of his mouth. It disappeared as he started to tell his story. “You were only a kid. Fifteen years old.” He took a deep breath and slowly released it. Alex sat next to him on the table and placed her hand on his thigh.

“Isaiah, our older brother, was going for a run in the woods. You couldn’t shift to your wolf yet because you hadn’t reached maturity. But you wanted to go with him. He wanted to go alone. So he told you no and took off. He never knew you followed him.”

Shelley’s head began to throb. What Joshua was telling her sounded like something she’d dreamed years ago. But it obviously hadn’t been a dream, but a memory. “Go on,” she prompted.

Joshua shrugged his massive shoulders. “Not much more to tell. I noticed you weren’t around, but we all assumed you were with Isaiah. The longer you were both gone, the more unlikely that seemed and we started searching for you. When Isaiah returned home and we discovered you weren’t with him, we were all worried sick.”

She swallowed hard as nausea threatened. Her head was pounding. She rubbed her forehead to try to relieve some of the tension tightening around her skull like a vise. “Then what?”

“Then we searched and searched and searched. I thought Isaiah would go mad. He blamed himself for not taking you with him.” Joshua’s hands tightened into fists. “Then we smelled the men. Hunters,” he growled the word like it was foul. “We knew they’d taken you.”

Shelley nodded. The early days of her captivity were a blur, for which she was eternally grateful. She’d been drugged and terrified. And so very young, especially for her species.

At least she knew that her family had cared for her. Had searched for her. That was something.

“Do we have parents?”

Joshua closed his eyes in pain and shook his head. “Our father died years ago, attacked by hunters and rogue werewolves.”

“Dogs,” Levi muttered.

“Our mother died not long after of a broken heart. Losing you and then him was too much for her.”

“I’m sorry.” Shelley really didn’t know what to say. They weren’t real to her. She had no memory of them at all. “That had to have been hard on you.”

Joshua’s head snapped up and he studied her with his bottomless dark eyes. “You don’t remember them, do you?”

She shook her head, unwilling to lie. “No.”

One corner of Joshua’s mouth kicked up in a grin. “You were such a little tomboy, running after all of us. You were closer to Isaiah than you were to our father. He was a busy man. Aloof. That was his way.”

A memory popped into her head of a tall, muscular male with shaggy brown hair and dark brown eyes. He had rugged features that might have been scary except he was smiling at her, teasing her. Was that Isaiah or a figment of her imagination?

At this point, she couldn’t sort out fact from fiction. She was going to assume it was a memory and not imagination.

“Isaiah searched for years. Long after the rest of us had given up. We assumed you were dead.” Joshua hung his head and sighed. When he raised it, she could see the pain shimmering in his eyes. “We should have looked longer and harder.”

Shelley’s throat tightened as Alex leaned against Joshua and rubbed her face against his shoulder. There was such love there. “How long? How long did you look?” She needed to know. It was important if she was ever going to reconcile with her past.